


Eight Seconds

by Warp5Complex_Archivist



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-13
Updated: 2006-03-13
Packaged: 2018-08-16 04:57:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8088091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Warp5Complex_Archivist/pseuds/Warp5Complex_Archivist
Summary: Malcolm's thoughts on nearly losing Hoshi in 2.10 "Vanishing Point." (12/22/2002)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Kylie Lee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Warp 5 Complex](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Warp_5_Complex), the software of which ceased to be maintained and created a security hazard. To make future maintenance and archive growth easier, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but I may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Warp 5 Complex collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Warp5Complex).

  
Author's notes: Hee. I've already inflicted this one on the folks at LD and MHE. You all are my next victims. I guess I'm just a glutton for feedback, but my plot bunnies are starving, and in need of carrots.  
  
I've gotten great feedback, actually, but the holidays have been running me ragged, and I need more inspiration! After all, I gotta write the Companion piece from Hoshi's POV, right? Sooooo, as Singularity!Hoshi would say: "CARROTS!!!" Hee.  
  
*Thanks to Paradox for the inspiration.*  


* * *

Eight seconds. Only moments in time. And yet, an eternity.

And not just to you, Hoshi, my love. As you faced some of your greatest fears, I, too, faced mine.

For those eight seconds, you were lost to me, forever. I knew what it was to endure life without you. I knew the chilling emptiness. The searing pain. The utter helplessness. Unwillingly, I became intimately reacquainted with an old enemy: Regret. Regret for words not said. Chances not taken. Roads left untravelled.

No more to see your beautiful smile light up a dark universe. No more to feel the warmth of your presence in the otherwise cold depths of space. No more to hear your lovely voice, an angel's melody, speaking in an alien tongue made beautiful to me because it was you who spoke it. No more to steal glimpses into the sparkling galaxies of your eyes and wonder if you perhaps felt about me as I felt—and still so deeply feel—about you.

I remember the quiet desperation roiling within me as I fervently worked the transporter controls, struggling to bring you back to me. I remember being dimly aware of Commander Tucker at my side, encouraging you. I remember the intense flare of jealousy that lanced through me in response to the genuine concern in his voice.

And for the first time in many years, I found myself praying. I prayed to whatever god may have been listening, that you would be safe. That the universe would realize that to lose such a precious soul as yours would endanger the delicate balance between dark and light; good and evil. I prayed that I might be allowed to take your place, if that was Fate's price for the preservation of your life.

And I would gladly have done it. I would have done it because to live without you would not have been life at all. Can a man live once his heart stops beating? Once the warmth and humanity and his very soul was ripped away? Many have.

A century ago, a bull rider was considered a success if he could ride for eight seconds without being thrown off. I feel as though I have an idea what that must have been like, to have been helplessly tossed about by an ambivilous and arbitrary fate, while desperately clinging to hope with only one hand. The bull of fate nearly threw me, love. I felt as if I were slowly dying, my existence symbiotic to yours.

And then you were there, an angel of mercy, pulling me back from the edge, pulling us both away from the hungry darkness. In that moment, warmth, hope and love once again suffused the universe.

Eight seconds. Only moments in time. And yet, an eternity.


End file.
